Peter Lucas: Coakley-Kayyem: That's the ticket!

Here is some unsolicited and free advice for Attorney General Martha Coakley, one of five Democrats running for governor: Be bold.

Convince Juliette Kayyem, the other female candidate running for governor, to team up with you and run as your running mate for lieutenant governor.

Kayyem, an accomplished woman in her own right, as well as an articulate and forceful candidate, may not want to do it. But if she did, it would seriously shake up the race for governor and put you on a path to win the governorship.

It would also place Kayyem, a former homeland security adviser to President Barack Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick, in a position where she could, if the ticket won, help make history and carve out a future political career of her own. This is her first campaign for office, and the governorship at this point may be an office too far.

Not only would this be a first in Massachusetts -- two women running as a team for governor and lieutenant governor -- it would, if they were elected, be a crowning and historic achievement for the women's movement in Massachusetts and across the country. Indeed, the world would take notice.

And it would come at a time when Hilary Clinton is campaigning to be the first woman president in U.S. history.

As things now stand, it will not be easy for Coakley to win the Democrat Party convention endorsement for governor over Grossman, even though she is ahead in the public- opinion polls. The Democrat Party meets to choose a candidate for governor in June.

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It is dominated by left-wing loonies who are more in tune with the liberal views of Grossman.

Coakley's problem is that there are two Democrat Parties in Massachusetts. One is made up of the far-left progressives who control the convention. They meet to put together a dreamlike, Leninist party platform that nobody reads, and endorse liberal candidates, the more liberal the better. Gov. Deval Patrick is their hero.

The other Democrat Party is made up of "regulars" at the Statehouse, members of the House and Senate who deal with real issues, like budgets, jobs and taxes. This party is headed by House Speaker Robert DeLeo. Many of these "regulars" stopped going to these conventions a long time ago.

It is these convention progressives that Coakley needs in order to win the convention, or at least settle for the necessary minimum 15 percent of the delegate vote to qualify for the September primary ballot.

Coakley is trying to win them over, which is why at recent candidate forums she has come out in favor of instate tuition for illegal immigrants -- a burning issue for the progressives -- which she opposed four years ago.

That will certainly help Coakley as the Democrats next week begin to hold city and town caucuses to elect delegates to the 2014 convention, which will be held in Worcester June 14.

But she will need more than that to beat Grossman at the convention. Grossman has been working the liberal side of the street, as well as raising millions in campaign funds for Democrats for years as a state and national party chairman. Grossman also has not only been politically correct on all the issues important to the loonie left, he believes in them.

But if Coakley could get Kayyem to agree to run with her before the convention, this combination would certainly change the dynamics of the convention, as well as of the Democrat Party in Massachusetts.

It would also help in fundraising and, to be sure. Emily's List and other women's special-interest groups would make it their most important state campaign in 2014.

Candidates by law do not run as a team before the state election. However, that has not stopped candidates from teaming up together for their party convention and primary, beginning when former Gov. Bill Weld and the late Paul Cellucci did it in 1990.

And this time around, Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker, who was beaten by Patrick four years ago, is running as a team at the GOP convention and primary with lieutenant governor candidate Karyn Polito, who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer four years ago.

The pair of Republicans have already made family and children's issues a major part of their campaign. Baker is a father of three, Polito is mother of two. Coakley is childless while Kayyem has three children.

How do you top a GOP ticket that has a woman on it? You do it by having a Democrat ticket with two.

Peter Lucas' political column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email him at luke1825@aol.com.

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